It was always my dream too, to live by the seaside. Last year, following a visit to Kent, we decided to go ahead while we were still young enough to make the change. We put our house on the market, "sold" it several times over for more than the asking price but just couldn't find anything for a similar cost that we liked as much as our own house so we had to pull out. We decided there was no point in buying something that we were not happy with just because we had a buyer for ours.
Anyway, as it has panned out, whilst I still hanker after the seaside, I am glad we didn't actually go. I have 2 grown up children and 5 grandchildren, living locally. They were all so relieved that we didn't go even though the thought of "free" hols by the sea appealed to them, obviously. I look after two of the babies at the moment, one day a week, and the idea was that I would travel back by train once a week, stay overnight then go home and enjoy my seaside life. As it happened, I had a pretty poor winter, healthwise, and would have had to let them down and therefore probably not get to see the children as often as I would have wished to. The thought of travelling through London to Hertfordshire each week lost its appeal in the bad weather etc. Reality kicked in and I realised how much I would miss having the children/grandchildren pop in randomly, the whole family thing really. With the best will in the world, the journey from Herts to Kent on the motorway would not be as easy as I initially thought so visits from the family would probably have been less frequent than I imagined.
Meanwhile, property prices here have increased greatly in the past year while they went down in the area we were going to move to so had we gone and had it not worked out, it would have been difficult to come back.
There is a lot to be considered and I'm glad I have given myself time to think but who knows what may happen when the children are a bit older.